For Love and Honor
by lynlyn
Summary: Which path will you take when forced to choose between honor and loyalty? One leads to love, the other gives glory, and only one will bear life. Kuroro and Kurapika centric, AU based on the Last Samurai movie. 10.17.05 chapter 2 uploaded.
1. For Duty

**Title** : For Love and Honor

**Author **: lynlyn

**Yahoo ID and email :** cloud121383

**Warnings** : Main pairing is Kuroro/Kurapika; I'll try to put in some minor Killua/Gon and Hisoka/Irumi for those pairings' fans – and if you don't like shonen-ai, you're still welcome to read, but homophobic sentiments will be ignored. But I'll be focusing more on the storyline, and the rating probably won't go any higher than implications. Also watch out for the war issues. I'll try not to go too much into details, but expect violence and nameless character deaths. This is extremely AU – I've completely departed from the canon, and am basically using the HxH characters in a whole new story. As such, I can't completely guarantee that everyone will stay in-character

**Summary** : Duty, conduct due to parents and superiors; the action required by one's position or occupation; assigned service or business, esp. military service; a moral or legal obligation. When duty calls, will you serve faithfully, even knowing that the summons was wrongfully invoked?

**Rating** : PG-13 for adult themes, some swearing, and violence.

**Disclaimer** : I do not own Hunter X Hunter and The Last Samurai, their characters, or anything associated with both. I'm not writing this for profit; I'm only doing so for personal satisfaction, plus the fact that I want to try my hand at writing semi-professionally. Any resemblance of the characters or the story itself to actual people and situations is entirely unintentional and accidental. Characters you don't recognize, however, are my own creations, with names probably snitched from other books or anime. I won't make a fuss over the original minor characters, but I will be pissed if anyone uses any of the major ones without my permission.

**A/N :** I'd like to thank Mistress 259 for a great proofreading job, and Yukitsu for giving second opinions. Bug them for updates to their fics; we're not getting enough of either. Happy New Year!

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FOR LOVE AND HONOR  
Chapter 1 – For Duty

There is nothing glorious about war, nothing glamorous about heroism and sacrifice. The old stories of great battles won and lost told by fireplaces and over mugs of beer are glossed-over tales for romantics, revised by idealists who have never held or fired guns in their entire lives. War medals and pensions might bring some measure of prestige and comfort, but they're only given as balms for tired and troubled souls – or worst case, awarded posthumously in recognition of brave deeds done by martyrs.

No piece of gold-plated metal can ever recover the lives and the innocence lost in a war.

Of course, there is some honor in fighting and winning and living to tell the tale, but futures don't usually matter in the here and now, when all one can see before him is death and destruction, soil churned into blood-red mud by trampling feet, sweat and fear tainting the very air into a sour miasma unfit to be breathed in by fatigued lungs. Firearms and weapons everywhere, guns and swords and rusted bayonets giving off their own metallic stink.

And the silence. Unnatural, heavy and oppressive, a barely discernible murmur of unease running thick through the ranks of waiting soldiers. The forest was quiet, the birds and other inhabitants having been scared away long ago by the tremors of hundreds of intruders marching and hacking their way through the foliage. The army had ground to a halt for now, but here and there green recruits shifted nervously, and an old veteran or two tried to stretch stiffening limbs back into working order. Horses whickered and tossed heads and pawed at the ground impatiently. The wan morning light caught and glinted off the occasional shined muzzle or belt buckle. Most of the visible movements were caused artificially. Any other motion native to the deathly silent forest was being swallowed up by swirling fog and creeping shadow.

Kuroro Lucifer knew what caused his men's unease. Hell, even the dullest runner in his platoons should have figured it out by now – they were walking into a spectacular ambush. Low visibility and eerie surroundings – the terrain was entirely unfamiliar to them, but they were very much within enemy territory. His esteemed commanders had committed their side's first mistake by stupidly giving the other side the advantage of being able to fight on their own turf.

If he had time to do so he would have gone back and pointed out a few more of the fatal errors he had spotted, never mind knowing that they probably wouldn't listen to him. He was just a lowly captain, anyway.

But he still wanted to try, to spare everyone the defeat that he could clearly see – these men are going to die. The army's three other commanders had pulled the best fighters back into reserve, for one reason he understood but didn't want to accept.

They were going to use the frontliners – his division, some three hundred men all on foot – as bait.

Even more crudely put, they were being used as testers. Examine the enemy's capabilities first by deploying a few disposable decoys, and then adapt accordingly and decide if they had brought enough manpower to stomp the rebellion out. If yes, push forward with the more powerful reserves; if not, abandon the frontliners for dead and retreat.

This was probably Zenji's idea. He was always going on about wanting to check the abilities of the Kuruta, and maybe even discover some of their coveted clan secrets.

The Kuruta clan was perhaps one of the most powerful among the influential court clans; should its members decide to enter into politics, the clan could probably take over the entire system within a week. But for as long as anyone could remember, the Kuruta had always refused to accept or assume positions of authority in the government; their power did not come from money or social status, but from what they were and the work they did.

All the Kuruta were martial arts experts and combat specialists; it was even rumored that their bloodline descended from the great warlords of old. Through the ages they had served as bodyguards of key persons in government and society, but they weren't for hire, and their services could not be bought by just anyone. The Kuruta chose whom they wanted to protect, and the decision to stay by their wards' sides was usually lifelong and binding.

Just as well that they only chose to protect people with high moral fiber and near-saintly disposition – diplomats, scientists, philosophers, government officials with more than a few beneficial political contributions under their belts, people that society could not afford to lose – and the respect accorded to them once it became known that they have been offered Kuruta protection could reach godlike proportions. It was tantamount to having the endorsement of the deities themselves.

Whether the Kuruta themselves knew that their well-meant tendency to favor and work for only a select group of righteous people influenced and shaped the currents of the power-playing within the empire's political circles had been the subject of more than one heated debate. Kuroro personally thought that they did, and while he counted himself part of a faction that believed in the effectiveness of their system of coddling only those who deserved the honor, an equal number of disgruntled politicians felt that it was high time that they be rid of the Kuruta's "machinations".

Which brought them to the situation they were in right now. Long story made short, said disgruntled politicians had finally succeeded in worming their way into the minister's good graces, and had somehow convinced the old man that the Kuruta were dangerous, and thus have to be exterminated immediately if the nation wanted to keep her current peaceful and prosperous status.

Of course, they were the only ones who thought that, but since when did authority listen to what the little people had to say? The Kuruta had done well in keeping the government from falling into complete and utter corruption, but even they could not stop the onset of decline and death that every empire would have to go through.

No, Kuroro Lucifer did not want to fight with the Kuruta. He was also willing to bet his late father's medal collection that at least a third of the army dispatched for this particular skirmish felt the same way he did. For one thing, the Kuruta were fierce fighters. "Death given flesh and form" could not even begin to describe their skill in battle. They didn't kill needlessly, and reports from previous confrontations indicated that they left the opposing side's wounded behind instead of finishing everyone off, but they showed no mercy towards soldiers they met in battle.

And secondly, if they had to boil the entire war down to the universal good and evil categories, the Kuruta clearly belonged to the good side. It meant that Kuroro and his men were fighting for the bad guys. It was not doing anything good for morale. And short of going AWOL or defecting to the other side, they all had no way of escaping the task required of them.

"Sir, it's been an hour…"

Kuroro spared a glance for the young man who stood by his fidgeting horse, at the badges of rank sewn into his uniform's sleeves. Barely out of his teens and already a lieutenant – though he suspected that the appointment was done more out of need and ceremony than because of what the boy may have achieved. Kuroro gave him a reassuring grin.

"The scouts reported that they'd be here." Well, the last surviving scout did, a choked warning of horror and despair, right before he collapsed, dead from injuries and exhaustion. "Which means that they _will_ be here, and we've prepared to meet them head-on." As prepared as they will ever be, but still not enough. Three hundred normal soldiers armed with bolt-action rifles against a hundred warriors trained since birth, in defending against and countering any type of attack known to man. No, not enough. And damn him if he thought that he could rely on Zenji and company backing him up if the battle turned ugly. "Look sharp and stay alert. We don't want to be caught off guard, now, do we?"

He knew he was hiding his own unease behind bluff and bluster. He was playacting, trying to show confidence and hoping, at the same time, that the rest of his division would feel the confidence he himself did not have. Oh, he could count on his own skills, and he knew that he could get out alive if he acted on his own, but he had to look after his men. The higher-ups had demoted him to his current rank, but he was still the highest-ranking soldier among the frontliners. They had no one else to turn to.

A horn sounded somewhere in the fog in front of them, low and mournful and echoing, and it seemed to Kuroro that the army gave a collective jump. Metal rattled as swords were pulled out of their sheaths, guns were cocked, grips tightened about hilt and stock. Commanders bawled orders for preparation, and Kuroro cursed under his breath as the army nearly lost all sense of order and calm. His men, at least, stayed relatively still. He had given his orders more than an hour ago, and they knew what he wanted them to do.

Kuroro mounted his mare, noting with detached curiosity that someone had been holding the reins for him. The lieutenant handed them over as soon as he had settled on the saddle – and he realized that he hadn't bothered to ask for the youth's name.

"Thank you, Lieutenant…"

"Farman, sir. Harold Farman."

Harold. The boy's name meant 'army leader'. Kuroro squeezed his eyes shut at the irony.

"Well, Harold, I'll give you this piece of advice, before everything starts going to hell. Don't be afraid to run. If you can't handle it anymore, don't try being a hero. Just run."

"S-sir?"

That was one of the last conversations he would be having with anyone from the government's side for a very long time. Kuroro shut everything out, ignoring anything remotely distracting, but opened his senses as wide as possible. If he concentrated hard enough he could almost feel the earth trembling in anticipation of the inevitable clash between life and death…

They materialized out of the fog like so many gray wraiths, movements more fluid than quicksilver, hands grasping swords and spears and scythes that flashed and cut through the air like knife through melted butter. They were wearing masks, traditional masks of the kind children squabbled over in the seasonal festivals. Feline and canine, avian and reptile, depicted in all manner of paint imaginable. If they weren't embroiled in a battle Kuroro would have stopped to admire the masterful artistry that decorated each and every individual mask – grinning grim reapers, they all seemed to portray, but he had no doubt that they served the double purpose of protecting the flesh within.

To his side's credit the line held in those first few critical moments before the battle itself. There were several misfires, and a few soldiers ran screaming at their first good look at a charging Kuruta, but the frontlines held. Kuroro prayed to whatever god was listening that the flanks would be able to estimate the correct time to move.

The maneuver he wanted to pull off wasn't new, but he had added in a little twist: the line wouldn't be able to hold for any longer than a few minutes anyway, so why bother trying to fortify it, when he had a way of forcing the central division – led by one Colonel Azrael – to engage in battle?

Thoughts of tactics and strategy vanished immediately from Kuroro's mind as the Kuruta rammed into the frontlines like raging water on stone. His soldiers had begun firing a few seconds ago, but Kuroro couldn't tell if the shots had any effect on their opponents. He had been doing the same thing; his ammunition went as fast as he could load and fire the bullets, and from his higher position on his horse he could see that he wasn't missing, but…

It was one thing to hear about the abilities of the Kuruta in rumors; it was another matter entirely to see them fighting right in front of his eyes. They were fast – faster than anything Kuroro had ever seen before, and the bullets the soldiers were firing at them seemed sluggish in comparison. They struck without hesitation and doubt, they dealt killing blows mercilessly, they defended and counterattacked expertly. They were also insanely strong. After fending only five blows from swinging swords Kuroro's arm was already getting numb.

To be technical about it, his division was doing quite well – until the line broke a dozen meters to the left of Kuroro's position, and the foremost Kuruta chargers reached the waiting second division. That was when hell started. The trap had been sprung; the left and right flanks closed in on the hundred or so Kuruta ranged along the center as soon as word of the line breaking had reached them. Kuroro had been right in thinking that the flanks would push the Kuruta further in and force Azrael into action. What he hadn't been able to gauge was the real depth of the other three commanders' cowardice, or whether they had any plans of fighting at all.

The third division's four cannons were being fired to cover the army's retreat.

"S-sir! Second through fourth divisions are being ordered to fall back!"

It was one of his runners. Kuroro couldn't tell how old; the blood running down the side of the boy's frightened face made him seem paler, younger than he really was. The cannons boomed in a continuous roar, and the battlefield shook with each resulting explosion.

"The first division?" He didn't have to ask; he already knew the answer.

"F-first are to h-hold their position, k-keep the enemy from pursuing, t-time indefinite –"

A mortar shell whizzed by, trailing acrid smoke that billowed and blinded. Kuroro had no time to duck or yell out a warning; the projectile hit and exploded less than fifty feet away, far too close to where they were, and his poor mare finally snapped and reared in fright, throwing him off her back in the process. Her frantic whinny changed midway into a shrill scream of pain as shrapnel flew and embedded themselves into the nearest upright figures. He had to scramble out of the way as her bulk toppled backwards to crash on the unyielding forest floor. Kuroro was left staring at her heaving side and belly, where debris stuck out of wounds as big as his palms. The thought that he had been saved her fate because she had thrown him off flitted through his mind before he remembered the young runner who had been with him…

Or not. Kuroro found him on his back, eyes wide open but already filmed with death. A piece of wood longer than the standard-issue daggers they used had impaled him right under the left collarbone.

Kuroro was able to spare breath for a couple of obscene oaths, even though the intended recipients were far away and could not hear him. The cannons belonged to the third division, but the second division had a special platoon armed with mortars. They were firing at the general direction of the Kuruta, but they obviously weren't realizing that the Kuruta were extremely mobile, and that they were hitting more allies than enemies.

His awareness of the battlefield suddenly increased, the contrast between one moment and the next so sharp it was painful. It was almost like he had been seeing everything as if muddled by a dream – but now he was having one of his "sharp" moments, as his subordinates liked to call it. Without looking Kuroro knew that the defeat he had foreseen was happening. His flanks were pushing, but the cowards were running away, and so there was no one to push back; the Kuruta were now turning around to hack through the line that had appeared behind them. People were dying left and right; he could feel each sting, hear each scream, almost taste the blood flying and spraying through the air –

– movement to his right, a flash of midnight black in the corner of his eye –

He raised his sword out of pure instinct and reflex, the burnished steel barely catching the surprisingly heavy blow of a thinner blade. Kuroro found himself staring down at a fox mask, the eyeholes dark and at first seeming eerily empty. He noted that his opponent was holding another sword besides the one he had blocked. He kicked his defenses into high gear; if the Kuruta brought both swords into play he might not be able to deflect all the blows with his single katana.

Their blades started to slip. They would end up crashing into each other if neither yielded. Just as Kuroro was trying to decide if he should move, the Kuruta jumped back and raised both swords in a ready position. Kuroro didn't follow, but he whipped his dagger out from behind his belt and adjusted his grip on his own sword.

The Kuruta didn't attack at once – he seemed wary for some reason – and Kuroro had time to realize that his opponent was smaller than most of the Kuruta he'd seen.

_Am I fighting a girl, or a kid?_

He was just wondering; he wasn't going to commit the mistake of underestimating the enemy, but it seemed that he was still going to be punished for the errant thought. The Kuruta crouched and lunged forward in a single smooth motion, and Kuroro blocked the first strike, deflected the second, feeling as if his shoulders might come out of their sockets at the force of the impacts. He ignored the pain, forced one of his opponent's swords away and attacked, only to have it blocked as well. They went on like that for a few more rounds, attacking and defending, neither side giving way, form and footwork getting more advanced and complicated as they flowed from one stance to another.

Eventually it occurred to Kuroro that their fight was dragging, he was taking too long. He decided to press the advantage of his height and greater body mass to overpower the smaller Kuruta. He leaned forward and started to push his opponent back… or tried to, anyway. The Kuruta wasn't budging a single inch! Kuroro could practically feel the smugness oozing out from behind those dark eyeholes. He suddenly felt childishly spiteful, like a kid who wasn't getting his way in a ridiculous game of tug-of-war. He abruptly changed tactics and leaned back and to the left.

With no one pushing back, his opponent stumbled forward, unbalanced and unguarded. Kuroro slashed at the exposed back, but the blade only met thin air. The Kuruta had crouched down so fast it seemed that he had disappeared, and his foot was driving back and up and into Kuroro's neck. He heard the snap of something breaking, felt pain shooting up and down his windpipe, and almost blacked out from a sudden inability to breathe. The next thing he knew he was on his knees, gagging and gasping and desperately trying to suck in air through a bruised neck, eyes blinded by bludgeoning black spots. He tried to stagger to his feet, tried to see where the Kuruta had gone to – looked up and met furious red eyes, darkened to a near black by the cover of the fox mask and the shadow of the smoke trailing from the fires caused by the explosions all around them.

Kuroro scooted backwards as far as his rubbery arms allowed him to, then finally found purchase by jamming his sword into the earth and pushing himself upright, but he could barely move, let alone try to defend himself or run away. He started to pray for a miracle, anything to intervene – even a stray mortar shell would be welcome just about now, as long as it distracted his opponent long enough for him to get his breath back.

Of course, nothing ever happens the way you want it to. The next potential distraction came in the form of a cannonball barreling into the nearest copse of trees, and Kuroro stared in morbid fascination as the impact tore through a group of soldiers who had decided to use the ancient trunks for cover.

Screams mingled with the cracks splintering the air as the wounded trees started to collapse. He could see one particularly tall pine leaning towards their direction, and he backed away hurriedly, sword still up in a pretense of defense. He fully expected the Kuruta to pursue him, but his opponent took one look at the behemoth about to crush them, and almost as if he believed the falling tree to be below his notice, nonchalantly stepped backwards a few steps. The uprooted tree crashed with a deafening groan.

The ancient pine was unbelievably wide. Even lying on its side its branches stuck up to form a wall several feet tall. Now reason dictated that he seize this chance and retreat while he had the time – it would take the Kuruta more than a few seconds to circle around; but like a moth drawn to the mesmerizing dance of a candle's flame Kuroro felt rooted to the spot, unable to turn away as a pair of haunting red eyes stared back into his own through a gap in the leafy barrier before him. He could feel his Kuruta opponent measuring him, gaze almost burning into his soul as if by a look alone his worth could be judged.

Well, it seemed that he had been found lacking, for after a few seconds the Kuruta turned away. Kuroro blinked in surprise, the sudden loss of contact leaving him feeling curiously disappointed and slightly disoriented. Through the leaves he watched his opponent walk away with two smaller, similarly garbed figures trailing behind. A moment later they were gone, black outlines blurring into the background of dust and smoke.

The disappointment that had sprung up after he realized that he had been dismissed so casually was harder to dispel than the vision of the three Kuruta disappearing into the smoke like the ghosts they were sometimes compared to. Kuroro probed further, and was disconcerted to realize that a part of him had actually wanted to continue fighting, to prolong the encounter that had very nearly resulted in his death. If the pain in his neck wasn't so bad he would have given his head a thorough shake, just enough to chastise himself for his irrationality. Sure, he gambled occasionally, but he wasn't one to risk his neck on a mere whim. If his subordinates knew they would have given him hell –

_Subordinates_. For what seemed like the hundredth time that day Kuroro cursed, this time berating himself for his lack of attention. He had utterly forgotten that a battle was still raging around him. The last meeting he had with his commanders, back in the command tent, felt like a lifetime ago. His great and oh-so-powerful commanders, who had sentenced three hundred good men to their deaths. And he wasn't any better, zoning out when he could have been fighting, or saving a soldier or two from dying a horrible death. But as Kuroro looked around him it dawned that he wouldn't have made much difference even if he hadn't had that one-on-one with the red-eyed Kuruta.

Without the support of the main army's powerful artillery the first division had broken like glass smashed by a hammer. All around him soldiers lay dead or dying. Wood from felled trees and supply carts and guns littered the forest floor, some already being consumed by the flames from explosions. Here and there blood-stained platoon banners covered the muddy ground, some ripped beyond recognition by panicked hands. The desecrated sigils were the last things on his mind, and yet he couldn't help but compare the sorry state of the once-fine cloth to the division he had, for a short while, commanded. The government side had lost, nearly a third of the thousand-man strong force that had been sent to the battlefield that fateful day destroyed, the rest retreating under the orders of cowards. _The Kuruta had only a hundred warriors._ And even more unbelievable, none of the corpses he could see belonged to the rebelling tribe. They had won without a single casualty, an outcome virtually unheard of, considering their lesser numbers compared to the government's army.

Kuroro swallowed the bile that rose at the back of his throat as he thought of the command he had been given: Hold position, keep enemy from pursuing. _Well, that point is moot now._ Was he still obliged to follow that order, now that the first division was in tatters? Of course he was. Or at least, he had to gather up the survivors and organize _some_ form of working command. The "keep enemy from pursuing" clause, though, would be a bit harder to enforce.

A shout drew him away from his planning, and Kuroro turned to see a group of soldiers who seemed less wounded than those lying on the ground around him. They were doing their best to tend to their injuries, and at the same time looking out for fellow survivors, their movements quick and furtive so as not to draw the attention of the Kuruta. They were the closest thing he could see that resembled a point of recovery, and he started to walk. He had barely taken a step towards them, though, before his right leg exploded in pain.

Reflex made him throw his hands in front of him as he toppled to the ground face-first, and Kuroro realized his mistake a second too late as the muscles around his injured collarbone spasmed in protest. He rolled to his back, mind unable to decide between cradling his left arm and shoulder, and reaching for his right leg, which was bloodied beyond recognition. He looked around wildly, and his confusion turned to fear as he spotted a pair of Kuruta standing a few meters behind him. The one at the front was holding a rifle in his hands, turning it over and around in inspection, while the second stood further away, hands clasped behind his back at attention.

If he wasn't literally fighting for life and limb Kuroro would have found the sight that greeted him bafflingly amusing. The Kuruta that had shot him was easily the largest person he had ever seen, with fingers that reminded him of sausages and double – no, even triple chins. It was the first Kuruta he had seen unmasked, and the face that floated above the rotund body was pale and cruel, with a small mouth and narrow eyes. It occurred to him that his attacker was more likely a member of another defecting clan, and not necessarily Kuruta, but the notion was lost as the rifle swung around to point at him again.

"Guns are great!" the fat Kuruta remarked. "This model is a bit slow, but I still think it's better than rusty old swords and bare fists."

"Your father uses bare fists when he fights."

"You're ruining an already ruined day, Gotong," Fat Kuruta threatened angrily. "I can't believe Father wouldn't let me fight! He lets Killu go on missions but forbids me to go out… It pisses me off!" There was a dull thunk and the sound of skittering, and Kuroro surmised that some unsuspecting piece of wood had just been kicked across the clearing.

"Your talents lie elsewhere, Miruki-sama. Your father only thinks of your safety," Gotong replied consolingly.

"What good is a demolitions expert when his bombs aren't being used?" Miruki muttered darkly. But he looked at Kuroro, and down at the rifle, and his mood brightened as suddenly as the sun breaking out from behind storm clouds. Kuroro listened in horror at the sadistic glee he could hear in the Kuruta's voice.

"Hey, maybe if I tweaked this a bit and showed it to Father he might agree to use it!"

"Tweak?"

"Watch this, Gotong. I might not be able to beat Killu in a wrestling match but when it comes to bombs I know more than anyone else. I'll have to get rid of the manual bolt first, of course, then raise the rate of fire –"

Kuroro couldn't see what was being done to the army-issue rifle from his position on the ground, but he knew that he didn't want to be around to find out. He started to struggle to his feet – or rather, his one good foot. His right leg was ruined, and there was a very high chance that he would lose it, but it wouldn't matter if he didn't live to get it to a doctor. Gotong was watching him, but he was beyond caring. He didn't even know what he would do once he was able to stand – limp away and hope that the obese Kuruta would have difficulty catching up because he was too fat?

Kuroro never got to his feet, though. He froze on his knees, ears registering the quiet click of a gun being cocked. He looked up and recoiled instinctively. The gun was leveled at his forehead, the barrel a mere dozen strides away. Miruki was frowning, seemingly displeased with his would-be target.

"Too small."

"What?"

Miruki started to look around, and the gun lowered. "I want a bigger target," he explained to his companion. Kuroro was too relieved to feel insulted by the size comment. But his relief instantly changed to horror when he realized that the Kuruta was now peering intently at the group of survivors who had hailed him earlier.

"Perfect!"

"No, don't –"

Bolt-action rifles have one fatal flaw; they couldn't be fired continuously. Empty cartridges had to be removed manually before new ones could be inserted. They worked well against single, distant targets, but they were less effective against multiple advancing enemies. The modified rifle had no such limitation; Kuroro could only watch helplessly as the unfortunate victims all fell in one unceasing roar.

"Surprised?" Miruki cackled, smugly watching the shell-shocked faces of his family's head majordomo and the nameless soldier whose leg he had shot out earlier. "That's not the only thing this baby can do. Do you want me to make it more explosive, Gotong?"

"Its power is truly amazing, Miruki-sama, but I don't think your father –"

"Nonsense! Did you see how the blood misted the air? I can taste it all the way from here! It would have been nicer if they'd screamed more before they died, though. Now for the finisher."

Kuroro was only half-listening to the Kuruta's cruel chatter. His eyes were flicking from one burned body to the next bleeding corpse, never lingering long, and his head pounded fiercely with each visual jump. It was a sensation he had never known, and it confused him greatly. Kuroro had seen people being killed before, prisoners being tortured more ruthlessly than the act he had just witnessed, and yet he was feeling a rage unmatched by any emotion he had ever felt before. Dimly he saw the rifle being swung around to point back at him, and dimly he felt himself looking up to stare blankly into the face of his executioner, but nothing mattered except the blood thundering through his ears, the frightening sensation of something powerful within him breaking loose…

"Miruki-sama," Gotong warned, warily eyeing the kneeling soldier.

"I know. He's coming into his power quite spectacularly, isn't he? But now I have no choice. Old man Netero wants us to leave survivors alone, but in this case even that goody-goody Freecs will agree with me when I say that I should kill this one before he becomes a problem in the future."

Kuroro didn't even flinch as Miruki edged forward to rest the gun barrel squarely against his forehead.

"So it's nothing personal, if you get my drift," Miruki remarked to the unresponsive soldier. "Goodbye."

In an instant of clarity Kuroro saw what he had to do. As if cued by some subconscious survival instinct, every muscle in his body tensed simultaneously. He acted the instant the shot spat out, moving as swiftly as the Kuruta he had battled earlier, head and upper torso twisting down to avoid the bullet, left leg surging up in a coiled spring, and right arm grabbing at the knife he kept in his right boot. Kuroro exploded from his semi-crouched position, blade out in a wide, deadly arc. His slash caught Miruki square in the neck. It was over in the blink of an eye; the Kuruta didn't even have time to cry out.

"Miruki-sama!" Gotong, whom Kuroro now assumed to be some kind of manservant, jumped forward to catch his fallen master. Incredibly, the fat Kuruta was still alive. His beady eyes bulged out in terror, and he gurgled miserably as he tried to breathe through a punctured windpipe. Kuroro staggered around trying to regain his balance after his desperate lunge, but he kept an eye on the pair. His strike had been true; blood spurted out no matter how hard Gotong applied pressure to the wound.

"How dare you!" the man roared at Kuroro, "Do you have any idea what you've just done!" Not waiting for an answer, he placed his index finger and his thumb in his mouth and whistled – one long, shrill blast that carried across the battlefield.

The loud whistle summoned two more Kuruta, who seemed to appear magically out of the air. Kuroro knew that they were in fact moving too fast for the normal human eye to follow, but _how_ he knew was an issue he didn't have time to address.

"Gotong? What – Miruki-sama!"

"Take him back to the healers!"

One of the newcomers complied without asking anything else, disappearing with Miruki in the same manner as he had arrived, but the second one stayed behind, pinning both Gotong and Kuroro with glares that looked decidedly unfriendly.

"Gotong, you were expressly ordered to keep Miruki-sama back in the village to stop this kind of thing from happening. What went wrong?"

"I wasn't firm enough," Gotong answered cryptically in a self-deprecating growl. "I will answer to Silva-sama later, but for now I need to deal with this dog."

Kuroro blanched. He had just heard the answer to the question the manservant had shouted at him. Silva wasn't a very common name, and the one he knew who went by it wasn't a person you could afford to cross, even in peaceful times. He was the patriarch of a clan rumored to be on equal standing with the Kuruta – probably even higher in terms of sheer combat power. Kuroro had just signed his own death warrant, any chance he had of coming out alive now dissolving into thin air.

Gotong saw that he knew, and the manservant smiled at him grimly. "Yes. That was the second son of Silva Zaoldyeck. For my failure I will take my own life in front of our Master, but not before I hand you over to him cut up and served on a silver platter."

_Oh, shit._

It would have been easier to just stand still and let the enraged Gotong fillet him however he liked, but Kuroro stubbornly clung to his sword and his life. Something primal was telling him to fight, forcing him to act like a cornered animal with nothing to lose. All his senses were wide open, and he felt ready to explode with the life thrumming though his veins. He managed to remain standing, even with his useless right leg, even when blades bit into his flesh and drew blood. One of his opponents was able to knock his sword away, yet he still went on fighting, picking up a spear-tipped flagpole right off the ground and proceeding to swing it around like a madman. He didn't even realize when more Kuruta joined Gotong in trying to bring him down, or that his desperate fight had caught the eyes of a number of important people; his world had shrunk down to the weapon in his hands, the enemies he had to keep at bay, their shouts of contempt and his own snarls of fury.

The attacks abruptly ceased a moment after he fell on all fours, body quickly losing the strength to support his weight with the amount of blood he had lost. Gotong and company seemed unwilling to rush him, though. Even down on his knees he had nearly decapitated one of them with one of his wild swings. They stood in a loose circle around him, daring each other to resume attacking, and he sat growling at the middle, waiting to skewer the first hooded figure he could reach.

"I'll take him," someone suddenly spoke from beyond the circle. The crowd parted to let another hooded Kuruta through. The mask looked familiar, and Kuroro's detail-oriented mind immediately placed it as the one worn by the warrior he'd fought earlier, but the eyes that looked down at him were cool blue. Gotong started to protest.

"I take full responsibility," the fox-masked Kuruta interrupted. "I fought him, but our battle went unconcluded. Had I killed him then your ward wouldn't have been injured."

That announcement should have proven that he was looking at the same person, but the need for recognition suddenly dropped down the list as Kuroro realized just how hemmed in he was. There were Kuruta _everywhere_; he was smack-dab in the middle of a sea of black cloaks and white masks. If he didn't feel nauseated at the sight of so many of his fellow soldiers dying, he certainly felt ill now.

The Kuruta who had spoken didn't waste time playing around with him; he immediately took advantage of Kuroro's disorientation and swiftly stepped up to his nearly useless left side, then batted the flagpole away when Kuroro tried to bring it around to knock him back. Lastly, a hard rap to the back of his skull with the dull side of a sword, and Kuroro dropped like a stone.

The blow didn't feel as hard as he would have expected, and as far as Kuroro could tell, was only meant to numb his senses. Had he been at full health he would have recovered from it quickly, within seconds, with just a dull ache and a lump. But he now understood that something was seriously wrong with him, something that went deeper than his already grievous injuries. What he took to be adrenaline, the energy that enabled him to fight his enemies off for so long, was draining away too quickly, leaving him feeling utterly hollow and weak. He hoped he was wrong, but he could actually feel his very life slipping away.

"You're bleeding yourself dry," he heard someone say over him. "Even if you got yourself to a medic you will still die within a few hours. I'll make this quick, I promise." The voice sounded apologetic, almost gentle, and Kuroro yearned to roll to his back and ask to see the Kuruta's real face behind the fox mask. He felt a hand at his back, reassuring, firm, and just as his vision and hearing went he heard someone say, "Wait." He didn't know if it was himself, making one final attempt at a struggle, or someone else, and the hand kept him company all the way until the end.

Kuroro _did_ know that he would lose consciousness first before the Kuruta could run him through. His last coherent thought was one of relief for that small comfort.

--- end of chapter one ---

notes:

I know I promised that I'd finish Wild Hearts before working on anything new, but… I can't argue with the muses, now, can I? This one was inspired by the trailers of The Last Samurai, prodded into existence by episode 6 of Clamp School Detectives, and helped along by the Chinese history lessons I took back in high school. And no, it won't be as long as Wild Hearts. And now for the clarifications…

I'm far from being an expert on warfare and artillery, but I did my best to make sure that the technologies and terms I used were correct, and that none of them would conflict with each other chronologically. I placed the period sometime in the late 1800's (around 1870, to be exact), based on the Last Samurai's timeline. Of course, the so-called government here is fictitious, as is the situation that caused the Kuruta to rebel in the first place – but again, it's loosely based on any of a number of revolutions that occurred in Chinese history. There will also be no nen here, only vague references to a chi-like force that makes the Kuruta side's fighters more powerful than ordinary humans.

Kuroro's a bit out-of-character in this chapter… almost cowardly, actually – not at all like his calm and collected dancho persona in the canon. Don't worry, it's only at the start. He _will_ get stronger in future chapters. But for now he has to get pushed around by the Zaoldyeck butlers. Anyone who's watched Tthe Last Samurai will know what happens next. (But be assured that I will deviate from the movie's storyline at the end. I am _not_ going to let any of my Kuruta die just like that.)

The Kuruta's masks were inspired by the masks worn by the Anbu in the Naruto series. The black hooded cloak's almost the same, too.

Apologies for what happened to Miruki. It was either him or Zushi. He will stay dead unless someone objects violently.

That's everything important, I guess. Now, depending on where my muses take me, I'll either continue with chapter 2, or go back to Wild Hearts. Whichever I choose, I don't know how long it will take me to get another update posted. I started this more than 6 months ago, stopped when school started, and was only able to finish it after school was let out for the holidays. I'm really sorry for the long wait, but academics happened. (And I failed my thesis, too…) But I'll try my best to write a new chapter before the next term starts to get hectic. It's the least I can do to make up for the delay.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this:)

January 1, 2005


	2. For Knowledge

**Title** : For Love and Honor

**Author **: lynlyn

**Yahoo ID and email :** cloud121383

**Warnings** : Main pairing is Kuroro/Kurapika; I'll try to put in some minor Killua/Gon and Hisoka/Irumi for those pairings' fans – and if you don't like shonen-ai, you're still welcome to read, but homophobic sentiments will be ignored. But I'll be focusing more on the storyline, and the rating probably won't go any higher than implications. Also watch out for the war issues. I'll try not to go too much into details, but expect violence and nameless character deaths. This is extremely AU – I've completely departed from the canon, and am basically using the HxH characters in a whole new story. As such, I can't completely guarantee that everyone will stay in-character

**Summary** : Knowledge, understanding gained by actual experience; the state of being aware of something or of having information; the act of understanding, or clear perception of truth; something learned and kept in the mind.

**Rating** : PG-13 for adult themes, some swearing, and violence.

**Disclaimer** : I do not own Hunter X Hunter and The Last Samurai, their characters, or anything associated with both. I'm not writing this for profit; I'm only doing so for personal satisfaction, plus the fact that I want to try my hand at writing semi-professionally. Any resemblance of the characters or the story itself to actual people and situations is entirely unintentional and accidental. Characters you don't recognize, however, are my own creations, with names probably snitched from other books or anime. I won't make a fuss over the original minor characters, but I will be pissed if anyone uses any of the major ones without my permission.

**A/N :** Longest chapter I've ever written, and it's not even part of my main fic. Go figure. Additional disclaimers are due to Mistress 259 and Khursten, who came up with Sahide's name and the ribald Placement Exam name, respectively. Mistress 259 also beta-read this for me; there would be more errors if not for her awesome proofreading skills. And is there such a thing as an alpha-reader? Because I bugged Yukitsu for help on the draft several times, even before I'd finished writing the separate parts.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

FOR LOVE AND HONOR  
Chapter 2 – For Knowledge

_If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.  
__– Sun Tzu, The Art of War_

When commanders gather to talk about the outcome of a battle, their discussions will always spiral towards an accounting of their losses, no matter how hard they try to ignore said losses by referring to their discussions as "field reports". Men are stubborn that way, insisting on coating horror with the paintbrush of formality, and yet inevitably falling prey to the desire to compare losses against their gains. The number of dead soldiers and horses, the amount of ammunition spent, how much of their funds used up versus how many of the enemy killed, how many supply wagons captured, how much land recovered or seized. The ordinary infantry soldier usually isn't allowed into such meetings, one may assume, because of confidentiality issues, but sometimes it is because the ordinary commander doesn't believe his ordinary soldiers capable of understanding the numbers he has to deal with over the course of a war.

Numbers. Figures. Indeed, the ordinary citizen will find the reality cold and inhuman, that life and death must be reduced to numbers, but technically that is how wars are won and lost: through numbers and comparisons. My gun is bigger than your gun. My soldiers fight better than your soldiers. My army has more money than your army, and so on and so forth. That is the case for your run-of-the-mill war.

But there are exceptions – wildcards that could tip the scales in favor of the obvious underdog, like a general who happened to be a tactical genius, bizarre weather or irregular terrain that could be used to an army's advantage, exceptionally dedicated soldiers fighting for more than just their lives, mistakes committed by the opposing side, even plain luck or chance seized and acted upon.

What if a particular army held all of the above wildcards? Good commanders, advantageous terrain, skilled subordinates, a large, immobile enemy led by stupid, arrogant generals, and the luck of the gods themselves? How then would their battles progress, what would the outcome of their wars be like? What if the army's individual soldiers are so well-trained, that each is equivalent to at least ten grunts from the opposite side, that all of them are used to fighting, surviving, and winning, that casualty figures for their battles are almost nonexistent? What would they talk about in their reports?

Mostly about gains, perhaps. Status updates. The damage done not to them, but to the terrain. Strategies that might work more efficiently in future skirmishes. Noteworthy opponents, and prisoners captured – if there were any.

The uninformed wouldn't know or see the power that the rebels commanded if he happened to nip into the room that the Kuruta used for meetings. He'd see a motley assembly of people, individuals that seemed incapable of waging even the smallest siege. Two wizened old men, both no taller than children; a middle-aged man who looked more like a butler than a soldier; a silver-haired giant, the only person in the room who resembled a warrior; and finally two light-haired youths, the older genteel and mild-mannered, the younger looking more like a young woman than a young man.

And if the uninformed would care to guess, he'd assume that leadership lay with the menacing giant, or even with one of the old men. But if he were to listen, if he watched more closely, he'd notice that most of the questions would be directed at the youths – or more precisely, at the older blonde.

"Perhaps it would be prudent to employ a different tactic next time?" said one of the old men. "The first division used a flanking maneuver to hem us in. A full frontal assault's well and good for scaring army conscripts, but you know that the outcome would have been vastly different if it had been anyone other than you leading the charge."

These six people formed the heart of the rebellion, unofficially but unanimously regarded to be the leaders of the disparate group of defecting clans and organizations. The Kuruta name only referred to the first court clan to withdraw their support for the government, but since everything started when the prime minister and his advisers decided to attack the clan for no reason other than greed and jealousy, the Kuruta were at the thick of it, at the center of a vicious power struggle that had quickly escalated into a civil war when other political factions took to choosing sides.

In the end it hadn't been that difficult for the rebellion's leaders to agree that it was just easier to use the term "Kuruta" to encompass everyone who joined them, especially when the government didn't seem to want to acknowledge the existence of the other defecting clans. Perhaps it was because the minister and his advisers didn't want the masses to start thinking them weak or incapable of governing, if even well-established clans would choose to side with the Kuruta.

The Kuruta themselves didn't care either way. They had already decided to see the fight to the very end, even at the cost of the clan's continued survival.

"As you wish," the older blonde replied. "But you yourself agree that it wouldn't have made any difference. I have full confidence in everyone's abilities."

The young men were Kuruta, with their distinctive light hair and eyes. The elder was called Sahide, the younger blonde was his brother, named Kurapika. Their father used to be the clan head, but he and their mother had been killed just before the rebellion started, murdered by mercenaries hired by the government. Sahide had since succeeded the position their father had left behind – which, in this war, roughly translated to commander-in-chief, while Kurapika undertook the logistics of running the day-to-day operations of the rebel camp, leaving his brother free to concentrate on fighting.

"It will not hurt to be more careful. Luck like this will not last… something is bound to go wrong sooner or later," the middle-aged man said solicitously.

The second old man nodded at his colleague's advice. "And there's something strange with today's offensive. They withdrew much too soon. None of the second, third, or fourth divisions even engaged us. They sounded the retreat as soon as we broke through the frontline."

The two who had just spoken were representatives from the Hunter Association, a non-government organization whose members were best known for being historians and clerics, although they also delved in activities the greater public didn't care to know about, like the protection of arcane manuscripts and artifacts and the maintenance of public documents. The old man who had long white hair tied in a topknot and a luxuriant beard, was Netero, the director of the organization. The middle-aged man who looked and dressed like a butler was his aide, Satotsu. The two of them stood for the Hunter Association and other organized groups who had joined the rebellion – in other words, anyone not affiliated to any of the defecting court clans.

"Noticed that, didn't you?" grunted the man who had first spoken, in response to Netero's observation.

"Of course. They left behind most of the first division like a lizard shedding its own tail."

The last two men in the room were a father and son pair – two generations of patriarchs of the Zaoldyeck clan. The family was believed to have as much power as the Kuruta, but their influence lay more heavily in the military rather than in the government itself. Zeno, a stern old man with closely-cropped hair and a neatly-trimmed moustache, had spent several months as an instructor, while his son Silva – tall and well-built, with a long mane of silver hair and predatory yellow eyes – had been a high-ranking officer before the whole family decided to break away and join the rebellion. They now spoke for the interests of the Zaoldyecks and the rest of the defecting clans – excepting the Kuruta, of course.

"Speaking of the first division – its commanding officer –"

"Kuroro Lucifer. The prisoner."

"Ah." Satotsu looked around at both Zaoldyecks' impassive expressions. Zeno had lost a grandchild, and Silva will never see his second-born son again. It couldn't be easy for them, knowing that Miruki Zaoldyeck's attacker was being exempted from retaliation.

"I assume that he was the one behind the flanking maneuver? It was a much more complicated stratagem than I believe the regular commanders are capable of."

"Yes," Silva replied. "Our spies didn't hear of plans for such a maneuver. The decision must have been made on the field."

Zeno sighed. There had to be a reason why Sahide had interfered in the prisoner's execution, and he wanted to know what it was. "Brilliant strategist or not, I think I should warn you now; my daughter-in-law is being very vocal about the issue of the prisoner."

"Meaning that she's screaming for his blood – and very loudly, at that," Netero translated cheerfully, even as he gave a small, deferential bow to Zeno to indicate that he didn't mean any insult.

The older Zaoldyeck waved the apology aside – he happened to agree that his son's wife could be irritatingly loud at times. A tiny grin of amusement directed at the sharp-eyed old man gave words to an acknowledgement that would be inappropriate if voiced in a formal court setting.

"I can't hand him over to you, but I truly am sorry to hear about Miruki," Sahide finally murmured.

"Your apology wasn't asked for," Silva said succinctly.

The elder of the Kuruta brothers immediately schooled his face into an expression of puzzlement, but Zeno was quick to notice that it was a half-hearted attempt, at best. "That face will not fool anyone, Sahide. Really, how you were able to last as long as you did in the Imperial Courts is beyond me," he muttered

"You don't have to hide your dislike for the boy," Silva continued, his voice cutting through the tense air of the command room with brutal honesty. "My son disobeyed my orders and yours, and he acted in bad form. He got no less than what he deserved."

"You can't possibly mean that," Kurapika objected. "He's still your son. You have the right to demand compensation."

"Bad karma, that was all," Silva stated matter-of-factly, with perhaps just the tiniest bit of loss, if one knew how to look for it. "Father and I do not blame you, or the prisoner. Miruki attacked unarmed combatants, after the battle itself had been concluded. Kuroro Lucifer was just defending himself. I'll just have to find some way to make Kikyou accept that."

The last sentence was said slowly, with the air of a man entirely too used to dealing with a formidable wife, and who, despite his determination, wasn't looking forward to the task. There was an awkward moment of silence as the room's other occupants pondered on the wisdom of commenting on the marriage of a man who made a living out of killing people. Netero finally broke it with a discreet cough and a standard-issue question.

"How is he doing, by the way?"

Netero had directed the question at both Kuruta, and he had expected to be answered by the older brother, but it was the younger who replied. "He's been placed under Leorio's watch… he's stable for now. I've had to force ki into him to stop the drain, though."

"May I ask why –" Zeno started, but he was cut off by the sound of someone skidding and slipping on wooden floors that had been polished excessively. A disheveled and bespectacled young man barged into the room, blustering fit to wake the dead.

"Kurapika! Would it be okay for you to give another dose… Ah." The head medic of the Hunter Association flushed as he took in the bemused gazes being leveled at him. He immediately started to back out of the room. "Right. Meeting. Uhh, sorry for interrupting –"

"No, it's all right, Leorio," Sahide called out, stopping the healer just as he was stepping through the doorway. The blonde then turned to speak to his brother. "Go with him, Kurapika. We're about to wrap things up, anyway."

Kurapika gave his sibling a quizzical glance. Netero could see that the boy was curious. He wasn't surprised; there were still a number of things they needed to talk about before dispersing.

Well, they _were_ brothers. Kurapika could just corner Sahide after dinner and demand answers to whatever question he may have.

"All right, then. Please excuse me." Kurapika bowed and left with the head medic.

"So…" Netero drawled as soon as he was sure that the younger Kuruta had walked out of earshot, "Care to tell us the reason you all but told your brother to leave before we could ask what you're planning to do with Kuroro Lucifer? He _did_ say that the patient's stable. Leorio could have waited until this meeting's really over."

"I never could get anything past you," Sahide mumbled ruefully.

"Why?" Zeno asked, slightly alarmed by the hand-caught-in-the-cookie-jar feeling the Kuruta clan head was now broadcasting. "What does Kurapika have to do with any of this? And why did you put Lucifer under your household, specifically under Kurapika's care? We all know that the boy's capable enough, but wouldn't that take time away from his other duties?"

Sahide didn't answer at once. Zeno blinked in surprise. It was quite possibly the first time he had seen the normally confident young man hesitate. Kuruta were raised to be decisive; a bodyguard had to be able to move quickly and efficiently when responding to threats to the person he or she was supposed to protect. And being as young as they were, it was doubly important that the Kuruta siblings avoid showing any sign of weakness, especially in front of the people who followed them.

"What do you know of the prisoner – Kuroro Lucifer?" Sahide finally spoke, slowly and carefully.

The seemingly unrelated response – a question in answer to Zeno's own queries – threw the Zaoldyecks off-balance. Zeno looked at his son, who shrugged and looked at the Hunter representatives. Netero, upon seeing the attention being directed at him, just smiled innocently and looked up imploringly at his aide.

Satotsu gave a long-suffering sigh, straightened – he was already standing with his back ramrod-straight; how he was still able to give the impression of a soldier snapping to attention was a mystery none of the four other men cared to solve – and adopted the tone of a lecturer laying claim to his lectern.

"His parents died when he was very young. We don't know if he has any family left, but it would be safe to assume that he doesn't belong to any court clan. As you know, that would usually mean that he would have no chance of getting a good enough education to get into the government, but nevertheless, he took the placement exam two years ago."

Satotsu's audience tried not to fidget when he mentioned the government's examinations, held once every two years. Its purpose was to weed out the intelligent and hardworking from the hundreds of other applicants hoping to be accepted into the government. Aspiring officials had to pass a series of aptitude tests in order to earn the respect and the right to become paid public servants. It was relatively effective, and really was the only way for non-titled people to enter into the empire's service, but its full name – Public Examination for National Integrity and Service – sounded highly inappropriate when abbreviated.

For decency's sake, people just called it the Placement Examinations.

Netero's aide didn't seem to take notice of his allies' embarrassment. They had all been involved with the Imperial Courts in one way or another, and they still carried, in varying degrees, the stigma of being associated with a regime that dared to make use of such a vulgar name. But Satotsu was, if anything, a man with an excellent poker face, and he was not easily fazed by trifling matters such as indecent exam abbreviations. It was this solemnity that powered him through his narrative – references to disturbing exam names and all.

"His score was – and still is – the highest in the history of the exams."

"Why didn't we hear of this?" Zeno asked in surprise.

"Some examinees complained – in particular, a group of examinees being endorsed by the minister's senior advisers." Satotsu paused. Vulgar names he could take, but dishonesty was a matter his poker face just couldn't stand. He actually looked pained, as if he had just admitted to being the accomplice of a particularly hated swindler.

"You know how these things go. The advisers threatened to revoke the exam officials' licenses, but they could not tamper with the results, so they downplayed Lucifer's achievement. The officials were forced to give him a low position in a dead-end department. They also turned a blind eye on his case whenever there were advancement opportunities. He held his original position until about three months ago. He was demoted and then sent to the frontlines, when one of his rivals overheard him making a pro-Kuruta comment."

"Easiest way for a bureaucrat to get rid of an annoying rival," Silva murmured. "Get him sent to the frontlines of a war to die a gruesome and painful death."

"It's one of the things I wished the Empire would change," Netero declared. "It's an absolute waste of talent! I've seen his exam papers, and his answers to the governance questions were sheer genius…" The elderly historian trailed off in mid-rant. Then he blinked. And he gaped, with the slack-jawed demeanor of someone who had just been hit head-on by a startling realization.

Sahide smiled wryly – almost smugly. He hadn't had to explain anything – the director of the Hunter Association had figured everything out. "I don't want to get ahead of myself, but if we win… _when_ we win, the current government will be overthrown. It is more than likely that the system will collapse unless we restructure it… Everything will need to be changed, improved. And one of the first things we need to do is to put capable people behind the positions of power."

His gaze turned apologetic, and incongruently calculating at the same time, as he swept it over the men who had vowed to stand with him and his clan, against the reigning power that currently held the land.

"I don't know about you gentlemen, but none of the Kuruta are interested in taking over the prime minister's seat."

"You're suggesting that Lucifer – and Kurapika –" Netero stopped and shook his head in disbelief. "I don't think your brother will take kindly to being manipulated."

Sahide just grinned charmingly. He seemed unmoved by the warning – and when Netero turned to Satotsu and the Zaoldyecks in an attempt to get them to help him make sense of the blonde's plans, he found them staring in incomprehension. It was then that he realized that his old age may be getting to him, if his mind could easily see the dots that formed the Kuruta clan leader's convoluted schemes, when his younger colleagues couldn't.

He also realized that, since Sahide was still grinning madly and seemed disinclined to say anything more, it now fell to him to explain to the other three men – to the best of his abilities – exactly why Sahide had ordered that Kuroro Lucifer be brought back alive, attended to by the best healer in the camp, and then placed under the care of the second-most important individual of a clan famed for protecting influential personalities…

"Well… consider the fact that Kurapika has long since completed his training – with remarkable results, I've heard. And he _is_ of the right age to be choosing his ward…"

To their credit, the three men understood quickly – only five seconds of silence. And they took it quite well – no violent jumps, no loud reactions. One would have thought that they hadn't heard anything at all, if not for Silva dubiously mouthing, "You're not serious," and his father exclaiming, "My god, he is!" eight seconds after that.

---ooOOOoo---

If Sahide had hoped to stop his brother from wondering about the future purpose of their guest by getting Kurapika to leave before bringing up his suggestions, then he was in for a disappointment. They were siblings, after all – both cunning and intelligent, and whereas Sahide used his brilliant mind to come up with strategies to be used in the battlefield, Kurapika watched and observed, applying everything he learned into making the Kuruta ancestral lands into an impenetrable and undetectable haven for his clan and their allies.

Perhaps the only handicap Kurapika had was that he had never been involved in politics – he had never been to the capital, for that matter. He had been trained to fight by his parents, and tutored in the nuances of the Imperial Courts by his clan elders. Everything else, he learned from reading books and by pestering his older brother for stories about his experiences with the empire, or politely asking for information from the historians of the Hunter Association. Kurapika couldn't have known about the prisoner's high Placement Exam score, and he couldn't have come to the same conclusion Netero had.

But he _was_ suspicious. No, suspicious wasn't exactly the right word… Wary. He was wary, and quite curious. He had participated in several battles ever since the war started, and not once had his brother taken a personal interest in any particular army grunt – not even one that Kurapika himself had been about to kill.

Leorio led the way to Kurapika's house. It was rightfully his brother's, but Sahide had managed to palm off managing the household to his younger brother, and whomever Kurapika could corral into helping him maintain it. Presently only two of the Kuruta blood lived in the spacious structure – Sahide and Kurapika, and three other people, who, for various reasons, needed (or wanted) to stay near the two youths. Now there was one more.

"– never seen an outsider with good control over his own ki before," Leorio was saying. "Well, not good as in _your_ good – I mean, he was draining all over the place –" Kurapika wrenched his thoughts away from his brother's propensity for plotting and forced himself to listen to his friend.

"Has something happened?"

"No. Not exactly." They arrived at the fenced-in garden that fronted the brothers' house, and the pair of Kuruta guards stationed at the small gate waved them through. "I know I told you that he's stable, but your brother said that he wanted the guy fully recovered by the end of the month."

"Only the best treatment for the esteemed guest, is it?" Kurapika murmured.

"Seems that way."

Kurapika could feel Leorio giving him a sideways look. He decided to head the man off before the questions could come. "And before you ask, no, I don't know what my brother is planning." He had suspicions, but they were suspicions that had only very recently hatched, and he needed to nurse them a bit before they could be considered serious enough to share with other people. For now, everyone would just have to deal with his affable silences and his brother's sunny grins.

Leorio opened his mouth to say something, but he snapped it shut when he saw the pointed glare Kurapika was giving him. Instead, he held his hands up in a gesture of mock surrender, and hurried into the house. Kurapika rolled his eyes and followed in a more sedate pace.

The house was quiet – Gon and Killua were probably with their families. Lately the boys had taken to shadowing him like orphaned puppies, but Kurapika knew that the sights and sounds of battle would always drive the boys to seek the comfort of their own kin. Still, they would be back the next day, back to their normal inquisitive and rowdy selves – these few hours would be the only chance Leorio had of working on his patient uninterrupted.

Kuroro Lucifer was as Kurapika had left him three hours ago – pale and wrapped up in blankets, and completely dead to the world. Leorio had already dealt with the worst of his injuries – the broken collarbone, the bruised windpipe, and the badly-mangled right leg. Normally those injuries wouldn't have been fatal enough to kill – only cripple, maybe, but the man had exhausted himself beyond limit, beyond what his body could stand _and_ heal at the same time.

Theoretically, a human body should be able to heal or recover from wounds or illnesses by itself, but only if the person is healthy and has enough energy to sustain both his normal bodily functions and the healing processes. Some people even went as far as to call it a person's life force – the energy all living beings had within themselves, that they use to move, eat, breathe, think… everything connected to living. Use that life force up all in one go, as Kuroro had nearly done, and you die. Get wounded and don't have enough life force for your body to use in healing you, as Kuroro _had _done, and you die.

That was where Kurapika came in. Three hours ago, while Leorio went about bandaging bleeding wounds, setting broken bones, lathering salves and doing his damnedest to save the shattered leg, Kurapika shared his life force. And quite a considerable amount it had been; he had given nearly half of the energy he had left over after the battle. It was the second infusion he'd done that day; earlier on the battlefield he had given Kuroro a smaller, hastier dose just so the man wouldn't succumb to sheer exhaustion.

"How much does he need?" Kurapika asked.

"Just enough to last him through tonight. And tomorrow morning," Leorio added as he carefully drew the covers back and turned his patient over on his stomach. "He's been soaking up all the ki you've given him; god knows why he hasn't exploded yet." Then the healer threw his arms out and cleared his throat oratorically. "Premium-grade Kuruta ki! One shot heals all wounds! Two shots for eternal youth! Three for the mother of all libidos!"

"Stop that!" Kurapika exclaimed in disgust. "You make it sound like one of Menchi's herbal teas!"

Leorio's teasing grin turned suggestive, and for a second Kurapika thought that he'd be asked about the source of his analogy, but the leer disappeared. "Seriously, though, why does it have to be you? You're not the only one who knows how to do this."

This time Kurapika hesitated before answering.

"I don't know," he muttered. He stepped over Kuroro's prone body and knelt, so that he was straddling the man's waist. Any wounds had been neatly stitched up hours ago by Leorio's steady hands, and now lay hidden under supportive bandages. "But if my brother thinks it's important that I be the one to give him these transfusions, then there must be a good reason."

"Wait! You _do_ have enough ki for this, don't you? You don't have any other important tasks you need to do for the village?"

"All over and done with. Everyone accounted for, defenses double-checked, enemy supply wagons secured, watch roster –"

"All right, all right, I get it already. Damn workaholic."

Kurapika grinned faintly. Leorio was a workaholic too – at least, when it came to caring for the sick and the wounded. Here was a perfect opportunity to say "pot calling the kettle black", but Kurapika didn't want to waste time getting into a bickering match. He leaned over and placed his hands on Kuroro's back, both palms below each shoulder and parallel to the backbone.

It was essential that he align his hands' ki points with the ones on the recipient's back, else his ki would just dissipate uselessly into the air – or worse, enter the patient's body the wrong way, and cause all kinds of trouble within it. So far, Kuroro had accepted Kurapika's ki like dry earth soaking up life-giving rain. Their level of compatibility was remarkable, especially considering that the two didn't even know each other. This little observation was actually one of the arguments supporting Kurapika's suspicions, but, again, he wasn't quite ready to tell anyone just yet.

Kurapika felt for Kuroro's consciousness. His ki was – characteristic of invalids – very weak and feeble. It would be very easy to pull all of it right out of the man's body, and kill him.

Kurapika took a deep breath, looked for his center, grabbed hold of his own ki, and _pushed_.

---ooOOOoo---

Wood… and air. Both elements of life… Living wood, dead wood, preserved, and burning… fragrant scents of sweet pine wafting along the wind, bathing him with the unmistakable aroma of dried and cured fir burning merrily just beyond his periphery… And he smelled the bamboo as he heard their hollow stems being knocked about by an invisible breeze…

…

Green… alive… he could hear and smell green and earthy brown even before he opened his eyes. Scent and sound formed hazy pictures in his half-conscious mind, and he wondered if that was what the afterlife looked like – a hardwood floor, leaves and bushes and shrubs rustling in the backyard, and trees beyond that, bordering a sea of emerald-green grass, clearings for farms and gardens wrapped around a lovely winding path of moist dirt and stone…

He could hear… feel… sense people walking around, feet padding silently across the wooden floor… whispering, talking, hushed tones of respect and deference, curiosity, stubborn insistence, veiled hostility and disapproval… Did higher beings feel mortal emotions…?

…

There were birds in heaven. If he _was_ in heaven. It certainly didn't feel like hell – he was burning, yes, thrashing in the throes of a raging fever, but everything around him was cool, comfortable, soothing and silent… silence broken by the whispers of angels, pierced by heron and woodpecker and owl… He heard crickets and croaking amphibians when the whispers went away, nighttime sounds in a place which he'd always envisioned to be filled with hymns and blinding white light…

…

Only the pain marred the peace of the place… exhaustion that sapped his strength, soreness and stiffness that made all of his nerves tingle, pinpricks along his chest, his torso, and his limbs, throbbing that rhythmically speared his throat, fire streaming along his right leg, a dull ache at the base of his skull, and waves that threatened to drown him, fighting him for ownership of his consciousness – a power he had felt before, of life and death that struggled against each other, and without aid he would surely have been engulfed in the empty wake of that last wave…

Hands helped him with the pain, batting the waves aside with a deceptive ease, helping him hold onto his life before it could completely drain away – warm fingers as soft as wingtips and palms rough with hard work and labor, alternately ghosting over his wounds and pressing vile herbal concoctions into them –

It wasn't only the presence of his discomfort that struck him as being odd, then, as everyone had been led to believe that bodies didn't carry on to the afterlife. He was dead certain that heaven only permitted the fragrant and the pleasant, and nothing that smelled, nothing that rankled like the liquids being routinely poured down his throat… they were bitter, and salty, and all manner of tastes in between, each foul whiff reminding him of the medicines he used to take in another lifetime, another life… a long time ago…

…

But the potions helped. He didn't die a second death, he didn't succumb to the poison; he wasn't borne away into the void by the empty waves. Each hour of rest, of peace, the caress of healing hands, murmured spells of comfort and encouragement brought him closer to light and awareness…

Kuroro started to open his eyes. He could keep them open for minutes at a time, mere minutes of confusion and blurred faces amid the brown of wooden panels and beams, before control of his consciousness would be wrestled from him by the drugs in his system and his own exhaustion… but not before he was able to see his caretakers, the owners of the hands and the muffled footsteps…

Eyes of the deep sky, framed by hair the color of a golden sun… the glint of spectacles on another, and a gruff voice that should have grated, but to his ears sounded surprisingly soothing… two smaller ones, curious violet and lively, warm brown, blending into soft silver, and black…

Children, in a place like this… They jostled against him once, in their eagerness, unknowingly jarring one of his injuries, and his pained gasp alerted the golden-haired one to his discomfort… a stern lecture followed, about running around a sick person, and something about a clothesline… and ears …? His identity tickled back to him slowly, like the grains of sand in an hourglass, and it didn't take him long to realize, in one of his lucid moments, that the children… were children, and the other beings about him weren't angels, and that he was alive…

No, not heavenly beings – although he had the uneasy feeling that he might have called the blonde an angel once or twice in his delirium – certainly no wings, and as his memories were restored to him, he gradually began to remember what had happened, and he started to think about who the people taking care of him could be. The light-haired teen could only be a Kuruta, and the one wearing the glasses had the look of a medic. The kids, though, couldn't have belonged in a rebel camp.

_Children from any of the other defecting clans?__ They don't look like Kuruta…_

Of course, now that he was clearheaded enough to think of the Kuruta, there was nothing to stop him from wondering why he wasn't dead yet. He remembered the battle, the retreat of the rest of the army, the fat Zaoldyeck, and losing consciousness amidst a crowd of Kuruta… The manservant named Gotong had been sure of Kuroro's fate, so if he hadn't been executed yet, he was most probably a prisoner.

"Houseguest, actually," the medic, who'd introduced himself as "Leorio-sama", answered when he tried to ask. "You don't see any bars or chains around, do you?" Leorio clarified at Kuroro's confused look.

"No, but…"

"I wouldn't worry too much about the Zaoldyeck butlers. Sahide-san pretty much warned everyone that you're off-limits. You're safe here."

Gratitude, for that reassurance, but Kuroro also felt irritated that he couldn't even hide what he was thinking from a total stranger. But then again, he _had_ been ill… And he was still too weak to bother with putting on the emotional mask he adopted when dealing with aristocrats. How long had he been unconscious, anyway?

"Eight days," Leorio replied cheerfully, "Just a little over a week. It's a good thing that they brought you here. Anywhere else, and you'd probably be dead."

He wanted to ask why, but despite the other man's reassurances that he wasn't going to be thrown into a dungeon anytime soon, Kuroro knew that his presence among the defecting clans wouldn't be looked on favorably. Not everything he asked for would be given to him, not all of his questions would be answered. It would be best if he just waited for his captors to tell him what they wanted with him.

And as the doctor told him, he _was_ lucky to be alive. He felt better now – in fact, better than he ever did, but the feeling of almost dying hung over him like a pall that he couldn't just shake off so easily.

The moment that Kuroro's status changed from bedridden to "well enough to get up" was unclear. Only a day after he first fully regained his consciousness he had already been lucid enough to talk and understand everything the talkative Leorio was willing to tell him, but his limbs refused to obey him whenever he tried to move. Leorio told him that he was still recuperating – that it was his body's way of telling him that it was recovering the ki he had lost from the massive drain he had forced on it.

… Whatever "ki" was. The healer didn't elaborate, but instead went off on a tangent, ending up prattling about the pretty nurse who lived three houses down the path.

And it wasn't as if he could actually tell when he was ready to get up – he couldn't just lie awake the entire time waiting to see if his body had recovered enough for him to move around. But it was on the morning of the third day that Leorio found him tottering about on his own strength. His bladder had a whole night to accumulate its waste fluids, and he had been too impatient to wait for someone to come along to help him to the toilet.

The healer actually screeched in horror when he saw Kuroro up and about. And Kuroro himself didn't understand at first – Leorio's strange reaction frightened and bewildered him – not until he had been forced to lie back down, Leorio all but wrenching his right hip off its socket in his haste to examine Kuroro's lower leg. That was when he remembered that he'd sustained an injury that should have made it impossible for him to walk.

But he hadn't felt even the slightest twinge, during his stroll to the loo and the few minutes he'd spent there while he relieved himself. His leg _did_ feel stiffer than usual – almost like the times when he'd overworked the muscles on his limbs, and for the next few days they'd refuse to bend or stretch properly.

"The breaks are gone!" Leorio breathed in disbelief after he'd poked and prodded to his satisfaction. "There's still lot of bruising left, and some muscle fatigue along the original injury, but everything's working! Nerves, bones, arteries, tendons – even the skin's healed over!"

"That's… good, isn't it?" Kuroro ventured.

But Leorio, passing the threshold of amazed incredulity into the realms of blank denial, had ceased to see Kuroro as a talking patient and now pinned him with the unnerving stare pathological examiners reserved for autopsy subjects. "I'd expected some fast healing, but nothing like this! That injury should have taken at least two more weeks to close completely!"

"Err. What does that mean?"

"… premium-grade Kuruta ki," the healer muttered faintly. "Off-the-chart levels of compatibility…."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Err. I'm going out for a while," Leorio abruptly announced, and he made a vague gesturing motion as he pushed himself up. "You're welcome to walk around, I guess – but don't leave the house."

Kuroro felt that he had a right to ask what the man was talking about since it sounded like it concerned him, but the healer seemed genuinely dazed. "Sure," he said amiably.

"Gon and Killua will be along later on," Leorio added absentmindedly as he walked away. "I suppose you could try to get them to play with you..."

Kuroro hadn't met or seen anyone other than Leorio during these three days. But he thought back to when he had first started to open his eyes, those fevered periods of half-consciousness that had felt like surreal dreams, and remembered seeing four different people. The man with the gruff voice and the glasses was Leorio, he now knew. But the other three – the Kuruta and the two children – were nowhere to be seen.

Despite the open door, beckoning to him to go through it and explore the house, Kuroro stayed in his room for the rest of the morning. He stood up occasionally and attempted a few stretching exercises, and sat beside the room's single window and looked out into what he assumed was the backyard. Nobody looked in on him until the sun had reached the sky directly overhead.

Just as his stomach started to rumble, Kuroro heard the quiet pattering of a pair of feet in the hallway outside his room, and a thump as something was set down on the floor. A couple of seconds later a delicious scent wafted into the room, and the blond-haired Kuruta entered, holding a tray of covered platters and bowls.

"I've brought your lunch," his visitor said. "And a change of clothing, if you feel strong enough to take a bath later in the afternoon."

Kuroro's first thought upon seeing the second of his caretakers was that the boy was young – at least half a dozen years younger than he was. His second was more a sense of déjà vu than an actual thought; he was sure that this Kuruta was a male, but he was quite effeminate, with refined features and blond hair that swayed lightly with the smallest movement. Recognition of the clear blue eyes and the soft lilting voice – from blurry memories of when he'd been unconscious – vied for the position of thought number three.

Then he realized that the Kuruta was waiting for him to respond, and that he was staring rudely. He tried to cover up for it by thanking the boy, who nodded and then turned to set the tray down on the floor. A set of clothes – trousers, robes, and undergarments followed it.

"I made sure that everything's easy to digest. Leorio told me that you're well enough to eat normally, but just the same, you should take it slowly."

Kuroro had meant to wait until the blonde had left him, but the smells coming from the tray of food were too mouth-watering to be ignored by his stomach any longer. His lunch had been prepared and arranged artistically in delicate ceramic dishes, set on a tray that resembled a tiny table with foot-high legs. He didn't have to take the covers off to know that the food itself would be as exquisite as the utensils.

"This looks wonderful. Please, could you give my compliments to the chef?"

"It has been received. Thank you." Kuroro looked around, startled at the statement. The Kuruta was smiling wryly – it was a tiny twitch of the lips, actually, but Kuroro's thought processes still stumbled as he tried to think of something to say. At the same time he wasn't quite sure as to the source of his surprise. Perhaps it was because of the hospitality the Kuruta were showing him.

Leorio was right. They were treating him more like a guest than a prisoner of war.

The blonde correctly took his silence to mean that he had nothing more to say – for the moment, at least. He padded back to the doorway, completely unconcerned that it was wide open, that Kuroro could escape through it and out of the house, or take off through the window overlooking the backyard.

"I'll leave you to it, then. When you're done, leave the tray outside the door. I'll be along to pick it up. Please excuse me." The Kuruta gave a polite little bow, like the ones court retainers never seemed to tire of doing, and left.

Kuroro shook his head free of the muddle it had fallen into. Truth be told, escape hadn't been foremost in his thoughts ever since he had awakened. He had to be practical. If almost two weeks had passed since his ill-fated attempt at commanding a division, then it was likely that he'd been taken to the other side's home base – the famed ancestral lands of the Kuruta, a lush valley protected on all four sides by thickly-wooded mountains, and hidden to all but the Kuruta themselves and their allies. If the valley was as hard to find as the rumors said, then it would be impossible for Kuroro to escape from it.

And he couldn't have known it at the time, but seeds of doubt had already started to sprout in his mind – doubt in his superiors, doubt in his government, doubt in the side he was fighting for. That he wasn't feeling an inclination towards active defiance was just an unconscious desire to understand the events that had placed him in the hands of the Kuruta, and a growing yearning to wait and see what would happen to him next.

But right now, Kuroro wasn't in the mood for philosophical meandering. He was being summoned by the tray of food sitting on the little table in the middle of the room. Ceramic platters held steamed rice, grilled fish, various pickled vegetables and a light broth made from boiled chicken. Kuroro wasn't sure that he'd be able to finish the entire spread wielding only the thin pair of ivory chopsticks, but his appetite was better than he'd expected.

The blonde was a very good cook.

That got Kuroro wondering again. The boy had acted like a common housekeeper. And he looked too well-bred to be a combatant. But Kuroro also got the feeling that he was a person of importance; the grace and the confidence in the blonde's carriage were palpable.

Too many questions, but without the means to answer them. Or did he? Perhaps he only had to wait for them to come to him. As far as Kuroro knew, he was the only captive the Kuruta had taken. The commanders would probably see to him sooner or later.

But for the meantime, he didn't mind waiting. Not if all Kuruta cooked as well as the blonde did, a very private part of his mind whispered. And at least his accommodations were comfortable – lavish, even, compared with what he'd had to put up with in the three months since his demotion.

As he'd been asked, Kuroro left the now empty tray outside the door to his room. Then, he tucked the clean clothes under his arm and went to take a bath. He knew where the bathroom was from that morning's visit to the toilet, and it was yet another example that showed how gracious his captors were being, that he was allowed to use it unguarded. It wasn't just an ordinary bathroom; the bathing area was actually a small pool filled to the brim with warm water that bubbled up from a hidden crevice somewhere. The bath had a natural luxury to it, built right in the middle of a house that – in Kuroro's eyes, was rapidly shaping up to be a dwelling of considerable affluence.

But nevertheless, Kuroro didn't stay long in it – he wasn't sure how far Kuruta hospitality would extend for a person that technically counted as an enemy. He also went back to his room right after, and spent the rest of the afternoon wondering why he was being left alone. He didn't see the blond Kuruta again, or anyone else he didn't know – but on the way back he thought he saw two heads ducking around a corner, and he heard what could be a giggle and a muffled snort.

Leorio came back to check on him just before dinner. Kuroro waited for an explanation of his earlier outburst, but the man didn't say anything. He also wondered if the Kuruta would bring him food again, but the boy didn't show up, to his slight disappointment. Leorio had brought him all his meals thus far, except for that day's lunch, but by then Kuroro had noticed subtle nuances in the arrangement of the covered platters that came to him on the little tables, certain characteristics and flavors that told him that everything – from the first herb-sprinkled bowl of rice gruel to this latest set of dishes – had been prepared and cooked by the blonde whose name he still didn't know.

With all the questions bouncing around in his mind it was a wonder that Kuroro was able to sleep at all.

The next morning, Leorio threw him out of the house.

Or more precisely, the healer pushed him out of his room, down a short corridor, and out of the house's main entrance, saying that Sahide-sama wanted to see Kuroro in the temple, that the temple was in the east side of the village, that it was hard to miss because "it's this great big building with tiled roofs colored like Kurapika's eyes when he's having a really bad day," that Kuroro wouldn't get lost anyway since Gon and Killua had been sent to bring him there, and that if he saw "a bunch of crazy guys in all-black suits with faces that looked like they had something sour for breakfast," Kuroro would do well to run as fast as he could in the other direction, because "ore-sama" didn't go out of his way to treat him just so Kuroro could get his "ass drawn and quartered by Kikyou's nasty group of eunuchs."

Kuroro lost him somewhere around "great big building." He was too busy taking in the garden, the houses and buildings he could see over the fence, the fields and the mountains beyond that… and the two kids peering up at him from their positions on both sides of the entrance.

He looked at them thoughtfully for a few seconds each. The boy on the right gave him a big toothy grin upon seeing his scrutiny, while the one on the left tried to dissect him with an unnerving violet-eyed stare.

Seconds stretched into a minute, and Kuroro and the kids blinked and grinned and stared at each other. No one broke the silence, and since it didn't look like the children planned on saying anything in the near future, Kuroro decided to go on with Leorio's orders. He followed the gravel path out of the garden and past a simple bamboo gate guarded by two Kuruta sentries, who didn't seem the least bit concerned with his presence. They did eyeball him suspiciously from head to toe, but they didn't move from their positions.

Kuroro ignored them and looked around instead. He was suddenly aware of the fact that he was a stranger in a completely foreign land – and that he had no idea where the temple was. Leorio said to look for it in the east side of the village – and the sun was rising to his right. With no real way to know which route he was supposed to take, he chose the pathway that looked least likely to get him utterly lost: the widest one, and, surprisingly, paved evenly with large blocks of grey stone.

It was around eight or nine in the morning, Kuroro guessed from the sun's halfway journey to its zenith in the sky. The entire camp was up and about, people hurrying up and down the dirt paths and working in and around the various stone and hardwood structures, busy with the myriad tasks that kept a self-sufficient village alive and running. Everyone knew each other; they smiled and bowed and called to one another over fences, and they knew that he was someone who didn't quite belong. Kuroro saw mistrustful and appraising glances being thrown his way, but his apprehension gradually faded as the attacks he'd expected didn't come.

Perhaps it was because of the local clothing he'd been given to wear. He didn't stick out that much, really, barring the "Outsider!" aura that hovered around his person like an invisible bubble. And maybe Leorio wasn't just pulling his leg with his reassurances that Kuroro was under the Kuruta clan head's protection.

Or it could be because he was being followed by the two kids who had grinned and stared at him back at the house. Kuroro stopped and turned around to face them. The boys stopped, too… and the one on the right resumed his grinning. The boy on the left continued to stare at him.

Kuroro briefly wondered if he should ignore them, like he did with the sentries.

"Are you… guarding me?" he finally asked.

To his surprise, it was the boy on the left who answered. The child had strange white hair and solemn violet eyes. "Well, we're more like guides, I think. Like Leorio said."

"You're…"

"I'm Gon," the boy on the right chirped happily, "and this is Killua. We have to show you to the way to the temple today."

Kuroro didn't know that it was possible to show that much teeth, sincerely, for a sustained amount of time. Gon had unruly black hair and big brown eyes – the boy reminded him of the puppies he liked to bring home as a child – and the big smile that on other people's faces would seem disgustingly syrupy somehow looked right on him.

"I think Kurapika was supposed to bring you," Gon was saying, "but he's busy with something right now…"

"Kurapika?"

"He's the guy who kicked your ass back at the battlefield," Killua answered smirkingly.

"Right." Kuroro refrained from asking for clarifications. Something about that smirk made him uneasy. And now that he thought about it, he remembered seeing, through the smoke, two small figures following the red-eyed Kuruta. Gon and Killua couldn't be older than twelve or thirteen, but they had the right height to be the two in the black robes.

And he wasn't sure if he wanted to meet this Kurapika person, really, not after what had nearly happened to him the last time they had met. The hooded cloak and the mask had hidden everything except the unsettling red eyes, and a person with eyes as eerie as those he remembered seeing was bound to have strange features.

Kuroro frowned. Now that he thought about it, he couldn't be certain that what he had seen _were_ red eyes. Red eyes were rare, virtually unheard of in the empire. Kuruta were supposed to have blue or green eyes, or the occasional gray. Perhaps the heat of the battle had skewed his perception of colors. And visibility hadn't been good at the battlefield; he remembered there being a lot of smoke and dust and thick trees all around him. It wouldn't be difficult to convince himself that a trick of the light may have made him think that a particularly frightening opponent had scary red eyes.

"Go on, then. You're supposed to meet Sahide-niisan at the temple, aren't you?" Killua prodded. The boy shrugged when Kuroro hesitated. "You're going the right way. It's that tall building over there."

Leorio was right that the temple was hard to miss. It was the tallest structure in the area, at four stories, but the evergreens that surrounded it still managed to conceal it. The whole village was built that way, now that Kuroro thought about it – houses blended in among the trees, and the stone and dirt paths wound around everything in natural bends and fluid corners.

"May I ask you something?" Kuroro said to his little guides, who were trotting along just a step behind him. The boys nodded curiously. "Are you Kuruta?"

Gon gave a bubbly little laugh. "No. We're from other clans."

The other boy was faster on the uptake. "Sahide-san said it was okay to call him older brother. And besides, it gets kind of weird after a while, all of us calling each other by titles and honorifics."

"Do we have titles, too, Killua?"

The white-haired child blinked at his smaller companion. "Of course we do. Didn't you know?"

"No. Do you know what they are?"

"Honestly, Gon, you're a clan heir. That means having extra duties, family values you're supposed to uphold, getting into the family business once you're of age –"

"But Aunt Mito never told me anything about titles."

Kuroro continued to walk, and the discussion behind him degenerated into a childish squabble, not really serious, and containing nothing of worth that he could glean, outside of the fact that Gon, and possibly Killua, were clan heirs, and that both children seemed close to the Kuruta clan head.

He thought about what he knew of his host... or hosts. He ended up drawing a blank – or more precisely, something vague and blurry that was swiftly being replaced with more recent battle-coated impressions. Kuroro could remember seeing Kuruta before the civil war started, indistinct and unobtrusive figures quietly guarding their chosen wards from dark corners and behind the sidelines. Off the top of his head, he could name several dignitaries who've had Kuruta bodyguards, but for the life of him he couldn't clearly remember what the Kuruta themselves were like. They really were good at fading into the background, jumping out with explosive power only when their wards were being threatened.

"Oi, we're here," Killua announced, cutting into Kuroro's thoughts and across his path as he sauntered on ahead, feet making hardly any noise on the flagstones that led to the red-tiled temple. It was a busy place, Kuroro noted, with lots of people going in and out of the various entrances and exits. It probably doubled as a command center for the rebellion.

Places of worship inspire a feeling of respect in most people, a profound sense of peace in others, no matter what the religion or belief. People just can't help but hush up in front of the silence and the reverence that permeate such places – even lively adolescents like Gon and Killua. They were very much subdued as they led him to a room in the lowest level, practically slinking, as if afraid that they'd be kicked out if they so much as brushed against the sacred walls.

The airy room was bare of furnishings, empty but for a wall scroll and a man kneeling on the floor before it. The boys said nothing, but by the finality of their movements Kuroro understood that he was supposed to approach the kneeling figure on his own. They left, and he walked forward slowly. When he was halfway across the room the man turned around and stood up.

The government had extensive information on almost all the important personalities involved in the rebellion. After all, the defecting clans had been part of the empire before the civil war. The Kuruta, for all the mystery surrounding their clan, weren't exempted from this scrutiny – at least, those who had had contact with the courts as bodyguards. The current clan head happened to be one of those whose faces all the army's officers were required to commit to memory, on the off chance that they'd be seen and tagged on the battlefield.

"I am Sahide, of the Kuruta clan. What is your name?"

So Kuroro already knew what Sahide looked like – young and personable, and completely different from what someone would expect of the leader of a band of rebels. He also knew that one of the reasons why the Kuruta hadn't succumbed to the sheer numbers of the army they were up against was because of their commanders' remarkable skills in strategizing… and Sahide was rumored to be quite ruthless when it came to manipulating situations to serve the Kuruta's needs.

"I have a feeling that you already know it," Kuroro replied, cautiously.

The blonde smiled at Kuroro's response. "Perhaps. However, this serves as our first meeting, and a formal introduction will make it easier for us to deal with each other in the future."

The future. Kuroro didn't know if Sahide had mentioned it on purpose, knowing that he'd catch it and feel some measure of reassurance, but it did mean that they were planning on keeping him alive for the meantime.

"It's Kuroro. Kuroro Lucifer."

"I'm pleased to meet you, and I'm glad to see that you're whole and well."

"Thank you."

"I saw your injuries. I was worried that Leorio wouldn't be able to save your leg, but it looks like he came through just as usual."

"He saved my life." The admission came easily, slipping through his lips before Kuroro could reflect on it. He was surprised at his own honesty.

"Yes. He and one other." The smile was back, easy-going and friendly. Kuroro felt bold enough to start asking his questions.

"What am I doing here?"

"I saw you on the battlefield. I saw how you fought off the Zaoldyeck retainers. I thought that it would be a waste if you died, and I had you brought here."

"A 'waste'?"

"Yes. In hindsight I realize that it was thoughtless of me to act without your permission, but I'm afraid you can't leave."

Kuroro stared in disbelief. It seemed that the Kuruta was apologizing for capturing and detaining him.

"Winter is coming," Sahide continued, "and the valley will be snowed-in. There _are_ ways of getting out, but at this altitude, traveling during the winter months is extremely perilous. I'd rather not risk the lives of whomever I'd have to send to guide you, even your life, for that matter."

"So you're saying that you'll let me go come spring?"

"If that is what is best for everyone."

Kuroro tried to stop his eyes from narrowing. In this situation, what was best for everyone didn't necessarily mean what was best for him. Sahide was giving him answers he could easily hear coming from one of the minister's advisers – and the blonde's sharp eyes instantly caught his reaction.

"Please don't misunderstand. You _are_ a guest of the Kuruta clan; I won't confine you to one room, and you will be free to roam around the village. However, there are certain factions within this encampment who think that you shouldn't be allowed to return to the capital."

"The Zaoldyecks," Kuroro muttered.

"Some of them," Sahide agreed. "You cannot fault a mother for loving her child, nor can you reason with retainers who have sworn their lives to the service of their masters. But I have managed to convince Zeno and Silva Zaoldyeck to trust my decision in matters pertaining to your presence. They will not harm you while you are under the protection of my house."

And that brought them to what Kuroro really wanted to know. What was the Kuruta clan head hoping to gain with his courteous smile, his reassuring words? He was unimportant and lowly-ranked, with not much information to divulge, nothing that the rebels wouldn't already have obtained by themselves, not with their influence and power. Was Sahide trying to entice him with kindness and hospitality, in a misguided effort to make him defect? But Kuroro was just an ordinary soldier who used to be an untitled official. He had good friends back in the army who'd willingly follow him to hell and back if he asked them to, and an above-average score in the last Placement Examinations, but that was it. He could fight well enough, and he could confidently claim to have more brains than Zenji and his group of commander cronies, but even dogs had more sense than _those_ bastards.

All that scrolled through his mind in the space of a heartbeat, but Kuroro discarded each question even as he thought of them. Somehow he knew that Sahide wouldn't answer them if he asked right now. The man would probably just lie, or change the subject, or smile knowingly and mysteriously until the silence turned awkward and Kuroro forgot what his original questions had been. He'd just be wasting his breath. So he rooted around for the simplest, most direct way to communicate his urgent need to know.

Maybe he could shock the man into answering.

"What do you want from me?" he finally asked, with less feeling than he had intended.

He wasn't the least bit surprised when the blonde's lips quirked into an amused grin, the smile of a mentor whose student has just asked the correct question. Sahide then raised a hand and gestured, and for a moment Kuroro thought that the man was beckoning him to go nearer, but he heard a noise behind him, light footsteps, someone entering the room.

Even as his head was swiveling to look at the newcomer Kuroro was already thinking about the convenience of the timing, that someone would interrupt their meeting at its pivotal point –

"This is my younger brother, Kurapika. I believe you've already met."

And all thoughts of conspiracies and conniving clan heads fled as he looked down into the eyes of his Kuruta caretaker. It was inevitable that everything else would follow, as Kuroro realized exactly why Killua had smirked.

The person who had been cooking his meals – whose fair features had caught Kuroro's admiring eye – and the warrior who had "kicked his ass" were one and the same.

--- end of chapter two ---

notes:

I realized the other day that I could just… I don't know, change the character names, expound on the scenes, do more thorough character development, and I'd have a publishable book. I could probably make this stretch up to a hundred thousand words if I really tried…

The character Sahide, as anyone who has read _WH_ may have noticed, is also Kurapika's older brother there. I don't think anyone would object if I reused his character here. Of course, since the circumstances are different their characterizations will have differences, too. And as always, this is an alternate universe fic – different history, different background, hence the differences in how the original Hunter X Hunter characters are acting towards each other.

For those of you wondering why I've decided to use _ki_ instead of _nen_ – I'm not going to give any of my characters _hatsu_ abilities. Either side could easily demolish the other if even one of their soldiers possessed normal HxH-universe skills. The _ki_ I'm using here would be just a step above real Chinese _chi gong_, meaning they'd be really fit, and have longer lives and enhanced physical and mental abilities. Expert practitioners, like Kurapika and some of the fighters belonging to the Kuruta side, know how to share their _ki_ with those who need it.

I've tried to describe the Kuruta village (or what Kuroro has seen of it so far) as best as I could without dumping too much information all at once, but if anyone's having difficulty picturing it, I'm basing the general layout on the village of Konoha in _Naruto_ – well, maybe less crowded, more dirt and greenery, and minus the electrical appliances and the giant stone faces. Katsumoto's village in _The Last Samurai_ is much too rural for my purposes, but the architecture of my houses will resemble the original Last Samurai designs, more or less.

That's it for the clarifications. I have no idea if this will turn out to be as successful as _WH_, but I'm still going ahead with this. The scenario of Kurapika becoming Kuroro's bodyguard has too many yummy possibilities to just dismiss as a wayward plot bunny. Thank you to those who have read and reviewed! In the meantime, please wait for my next update – if everything goes well it'll be _Wild Hearts_ chapter 15.

Last updated on October 17, 2005.

PS. I replied to the previous chapter's reviews in my Livejournal - go to my profile page for the link (homepage).


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